


An Owl for Mister Malfoy

by ningloreth



Series: The Ghost and Ms Granger [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 09:29:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15554724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ningloreth/pseuds/ningloreth
Summary: Hermione's ill, Draco's in a meeting, and Amos Figge needs to work on his communication skills.





	An Owl for Mister Malfoy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Dramionelove Minifest 2018.
> 
> The prompt was _Everything is upside down and inside out; Hermione's got a case of vertigo thanks to an ear infection._

_“An owl for Mr Malfoy.”_

_Draco Malfoy, in an important meeting with a bunch of tossers from the Ministry of Magic—a prick from Magical Accidents, a dick from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts and, for some weird reason, a complete knob from Magical Games and Sports—snatches the folded parchment, and opens it._

_“What I don't understand,” Draco's saying, “is why you’re so interested...”_

_He stares at the message._

_“Bad news?” asks the prick._

_Draco frowns. The parchment's a flyer, advertising his wife's bookshop, and beneath the image of Amos Figge (1565-1607), the shop's founder and resident ghost (featured on all of its promotional materials), someone—guess who!—has scrawled two words:_

__Come quicke. __

 _Draco can't imagine what sort of trouble his wife and her annoying friend can have got into since breakfast, but—because Hermione_ knows _how important this meeting is—he's sure she won't be expecting him to cut it short, even if Amos Bloody Figge _has_ managed to send a herd of thestrals stampeding through the shop..._

_“It's nothing,” Draco decides. “No answer.”_

_He crumples the flyer into a ball._

***

“Ohhhhhhhh, Merlin,” I moan, grasping the edge of the counter; what began as a trivial hearing problem has turned into waves of vertigo, attacking me whenever I turn my head.

Amos Figge, founder and, according to him, still owner of _Amos Figge His Bookshoppe_ , the business I've been running for almost ten years, appears before me, his face remaining steady whilst the rest of the world spirals round him. 

“How are you _doing_ that?” I gasp.

Cold fingers run down my back, then _woooosh_ me into my chair.

“Thank you,” I say.

“ _Your husbande will soone be heere_ ,” Amos reassures me. “ _I haue sent an Owle_.”

“Oh, no, you shouldn't have... Draco's in a meet—”

But Amos has gone, his sudden _absence_ as obvious as his usual _presence_.

And I need to be on top form to deal with Amos Figge so, for now, I'll just have to let him get on with whatever ‘no good’ he’s getting up to...

…

Moments later, the basement door flies open and a tiny, ancient volume sails out, lands upon the counter, and falls open just as Amos reappears at my side.

“ _Nowe..._ ” He bends over the book and, following the words with a ghostly fingertip, reads: “ _A Cordiale to Cure the Fallynge Sicknesse._ ”

“I don’t have the Falling Sickness.”

“ _Hast thou not fallen? Twice?_ ”

“Well, yes, but the Falling Sickness is epilepsy!”

“ _Take fiue snailes—_ ”

“What? _No_.” There’s no way I'm swallowing gastropods!

Amos sniffs; the pages turn, and he selects another potion. “ _Take the turdes of a smalle white dogge—_ ”

“Absolutely not!” 

More pages turn. “ _Take ten figgys and grynde them smalle with a lyttel oile—_ ”

“Well,” I sigh. “Maybe.”

“ _—adde there-to fiue full spoones of freshe pisse—_ ” 

“Oh, god, _no_!”

But Amos isn't giving up: “ _An Universall Heal-alle for Anie Distemper_ ,” he reads. “ _Take of the fleshe of vypers, with heartes and livers, six ounces; of the flowers of borrage, marygolde, gilly flower..._ ”

I close my eyes and drift away, secure in the knowledge that we're all out of _vyper fleshe_ in _Amos Figge His Bookshoppe_.

***

_“I'm sorry to interrupt again, but there's another owl for Mr Malfoy.”_

_Draco unfolds the flyer. This time, where it names the proprietor, Figge has triple-underlined 'Hermione Granger-Malfoy' and added:_

__Thy wyfe hath dire neede of thee. __

 _Draco notes the familiar use of_ thy _and_ thee. 

If Hermione really did need me _, he thinks,_ she would have sent her Patronus _._

_“No answer,” he tells the secretary and, crumpling the second flyer into a ball, sets it on the table, next to the first. “Now, where were we?”_

_“I was saying,” says the knob from Magical Games and Sports, “that this Committee has clear evidence of your potions being sold under the counter in bars, and in the toilets of sleazy nightclubs, and—and we've even got reports of them being smuggled into Hogwarts!”_

_Draco hides a grin._

_“My potions,” he says, “work according to need, so Mightie Member potion’ll have negligible effect on a healthy teenager—the last thing I need is a bunch of parents suing me because their youngsters have a permanent hard-on—”_

_“Mr Malfoy!”_

_“Look, I’m selling safe treatments for Erectile Dysfunction, Premature Ejaculation, Absent Female Orgasm—”_

_“And the Committee,” says the prick from Magical Accidents, “simply wants to classify them for medicinal use only.”_

***

I open my eyes, thinking, for one terrible moment, that Amos is serving a customer.

Then I recognise the other voice: it's Doll Hussey, the landlady of the tavern that adjoins the bookshop—the tavern Draco gave me as a wedding present, thinking we could turn it into a ghost-free home. She's been Amos's on-again, off-again girlfriend since long before either of them passed away.

“ _I told 'ee_ ,” she's saying, “ _that husbande of her'n be goode for only one thinge_.” She laughs her throaty laugh and I can imagine her, in the passage that connects the two buildings, digging a meaty elbow into Amos's ribs. “ _Though hee do be a marster of it!_ ” 

“ _He is not the husbande I would haue chosen for her_ ,” says Amos, with a deep sigh, “ _but hee_ is _the husbande shee hath chosen for herselfe_ …”

“ _Well, if tha wants_ my _advice_ ,” says Doll.

“ _Indeede_ ,” Amos replies.

“ _Tha shouldst Owle someone else, dearie_.”

…

Some time later, I'm awoken by the _ding_ of the bookshop door opening.

“Hermione?”

It's someone I haven't seen in a long while, wearing an expression of concern I haven't seen in even longer.

“Ron!”

He crouches before me. Judging by his smile, I look a complete fright. 

“Hermione,” he says, gently, “where's Malfoy?”

“Draco? He's at the Ministry.”

“You're sure?”

“What d'you mean?”

“I mean...” He pulls a piece of parchment from his pocket, unfolds it, and holds it up for me to see. 

Keeping my head very still, I look at it—it's one of my own advertising flyers, and two lines of spidery handwriting have been crammed into the space at the top:

_Master Malfoye hath  
abandon'd his poore wyfe._

“Ah...” I risk a smile. “That's Amos being melodramatic, Ron—he thinks I need taking to St Mungo's and Draco hasn't answered his owls. But, honestly, it's only a touch of vertigo. I'm fine if I keep still. What I really need,” I add, quietly, “is for Amos to calm down.” 

I call the ghost.

Amos appears instantaneously, like someone who's been listening at the door, except he’s floating in mid-air.

“Ron, meet Amos; Amos, Ron.” 

Amos sweeps off his big swashbuckling hat—which he's materialised especially for the purpose—and performs an elaborate bow. 

Ron is what I can only describe as gob-smacked. 

“Course, I've heard about him,” he says, “but I'd no idea he was so... so _Tudor_.”

“ _Mistress Hermione hath the fallynge sicknesse_ ,” says Amos. “ _Shee hath neede of thy helpe_.”

Ron's mouth opens, and stays open, and I begin to feel like a gooseberry.

“ _Not one of the remedyes I haue proposed hath met with her approual_ ,” Amos complains; Ron grunts sympathetically. “ _My attempts to summon her husbande haue come to naughte_ ”—another sympathetic grunt—“ _and I haue nott the powre to transporte her to a physician..._ ”

“Oh,” says Ron. He's looking at Amos with that _you are brilliant_ expression he used to wear when he was watching me do his homework. “Can you transport her shorter distances then?”

The familiar cold fingers lift me out of the chair and propel me forward, bent like Quasimodo—then Amos runs out of ectoplasm and, suddenly, I'm lying in a heap on the floor. 

“Wow!” says Ron, before adding, apparently as an afterthought, “Right! Let's get her to St Mungo's.”

“ _I shall sende an Owle to informe Master Malfoye_ ,” says Amos.

In a life filled with weird experiences, I can honestly say that this one is in a category all of its own.

…

“How's Lavender?” I ask Ron whilst we're waiting for the Healer.

“Last I heard, she was fine,” he replies.

“Oh... Oh, Ron, I'm sorry,” I say, chiding myself for being so wrapped up in my own life that I haven't heard what's happened in _his_.

“The kids are at Hogwarts at the moment, but they'll be home for the holidays.” He turns to me, smiling, every inch the proud father, then his expression changes, and his bright blue eyes linger on me, and I remember how that used to make me feel... 

“Hermione,” he says, “do you ever wonder what things would have been like if we'd—you know—got together?”

“I used to,” I admit. _But not once_ , I think, _since Draco came back into my life_...

“Are you happy with Malfoy?”

“Yes.”

I can tell it's not the answer he was expecting.

“You don't know him, Ron,” I say. “Not the real him. He's...” 

I think of all the things I might say about my husband: he's intense; he's intelligent; he can be very kind; he's rich, handsome, sexy—he married a mousey recluse and helped her become a happy, healthy, sensual woman... But there's one word above all that sums him up.

“He's loyal,” I say. “He doesn't connect with people easily but, when he does, you become a part of him, and he'll move moon and stars for you.”

“So where’s he now?” says Ron.

“In a meeting,” I reply.

***

_“Another owl for Mr Malfoy.” The secretary’s stopped sounding apologetic and started sounding annoyed._

_Draco's already crumpling the parchment, when..._

_He frowns, opens it out, smooths it flat, and reads the message again:_

Thy wyfe hath no further neede of thee. __

_Surely that can't mean...?_

No _, he thinks_ , Hermione hasn't left me—for one thing, the shop’s hers! She might have changed the locks... No, Hermione’d never sneak, she'd insist on sitting down and talking things over.

So what the hell...? __

 _He thinks back to breakfast. Wasn't she trying to tell him something? What was it? He'd been so intent on getting ready for this bloody meeting..._ Was it something about a headache? It couldn't have been serious, could it? __

_Draco leaps up from the table. “Gentlemen, my wife needs me,” he says, “so I'll have to make this brief:_

_“One”—he scoops up his papers—“my potions cure conditions that cause_ real _human suffering, conditions mostly ignored by the healing profession. Two”—he shoves the papers into his briefcase—“they improve the general health and well-being of witches and wizards everywhere. Three, but not least”—he hurries to the door—“if you go ahead, I'll have no option but to move a fifty million-a-year business to France—and pay my taxes there._

_“I’ll leave it to the Committee to decide where the Ministry's best interests lie. Good day!”_

***

“Hermione!”

As I'm leaving the Healer's office, Draco comes rushing towards me; from the commotion following him, I assume he's ignored instructions to stay in the waiting area. I take his outstretched hands. 

“Are you all right?” He sounds calm, but his eyes tell me otherwise.

“I'm absolutely fine, Draco,” I assure him. “It's just an infection, and the Healer's given me a potion.”

“But Figge said—”

“That I had the falling sickness.” I grin at him. “No, I do not have epilepsy! And I thought you knew better than to believe anything Amos tells you?”

“He's found my Achilles heel,” he says, and brings my hands to his lips.

Behind him, Ron clears his throat. “Er... I'll be off, then,” he says.

“Oh, Ron!” Temporarily abandoning Draco, I give Ron a big hug. “Thank you,” I say. “And... And don't be a stranger, Ronald. Please! Bring the kids to see me.”

“I will.”

“Thanks, Weasley,” says Draco, holding out a hand. “I'm indebted to you, truly”—they shake—“and if you should ever need a favour, just ask.”

Draco's looking at me, so he doesn't see the surprise on Ron's face.

…

I spend the afternoon lying on the couch, with Draco sitting at my feet, spoiling me.

“How did your meeting go?” I ask.

“Well...” He shrugs. “In the end, I threatened to move to France. We'll just have to see if it works.”

“Would what they're proposing really be such a disaster? How much would you lose?”

“All of my recreational sales.”

“But would that matter? Wouldn't the company still be profitable?”

Draco leans in, and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “You really have no idea about growing a business, do you?” he says, smiling. “Brightest witch of the age—”

“That's not what he meant.”

“I know it's not. But it's true: you _are_ the brightest witch of the age, except when it comes to business—and to Amos Bloody Figge”—I raise my hand—“who we're not mentioning at the moment.” He reaches for the potion bottle. “Time for your next dose.”

I watch him measure it out. Medicated, I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself but, the fact is, I'm enjoying being cosseted. I sip from the spoon, and close my eyes as warmth spreads through my body. 

When I open them again, Draco's watching me. 

“What's it like?” he asks.

“Nice, actually,” I say. “It takes away the dizziness, but not the feeling of movement, so it's sort of like flying.” I look at him more closely. “You're having a potions idea, aren't you? Tell me what it is!”

“It's not really an idea at this stage,” he says, setting the bottle back on the table, “more like a possibility. You feeling well enough to experiment?”

Grinning, I slide my hand along his thigh. You might have thought that, after four years of marriage, the feel of him, big in my hand, would have lost the power to excite me. 

It hasn't.

“You're _sure_ you're well enough?” he whispers against my lips.

“Oh yes,” I say, unbuttoning his fly.

Having him inside me, filling that need, is beautiful, as always, but it's only when he begins to thrust I understand what he, with his greater experience, had already realised. 

The combination of sex and potion—it's like I'm soaring, held in mid-orgasm...

I lie back—I'm an invalid, after all—and let my husband experiment—fast strokes, slow; hard strokes, light; deep, heart-stopping thrusts, _delicious_ grindings—and all I need do is tell him how it feels.

I don't think my cries are coherent, but I'm sure he gets the gist.

“D'you think,” I ask, when he's resting for a moment, with his head upon my bosom, and I'm stroking his hair, “a potion can replicate it? I mean, will you have to give people vertigo—?”

“Shhhhhh,” he says.

***

_Downstairs, in the passage that connects the bookshop to the tavern, two ghostly figures are floating hand-in-hand._

 _“_ Just 'ee harke at that _,” says Doll. “_ That man bee a stallyon! _”_

**THE END**


End file.
